サンボ論議にみる黒人差別観 : 大学生の調査を手がかりに

It has recently been a problem that the Japanese image of African-Americans seems to have prejudices and to discriminate against them. Some Japanese politicians have publicly uttered their opinions concerning their impressions of the African-Americans image. Their observations were filled with discrimination against the African-Americans. The character image used by SANRIO goods, children's toys, and the window dummies used at the SOGO Department store were denounced by The Washinton post, because they had emphasized a poor image of African-Americans. These phenomena caused the book "Little Black Sambo" in Japanese to have it's publication discontinued. Thinking about these Japanese feelings of discrimination against the African-Americans, I wanted to know what the University students thought about these phenomena, which I named the "SAMBO" controversy. Then I tried to do the questionnares using newspaper articles. This research is the summation of the results. These exemplify some aspects of Japanese students' attitudes or ways of thinking on discrimination. Here are the contents of the questionnaire. (1) What do you think about the "SAMBO" controversy especially the abolition of African-American character goods after reading the articles? (2) Have you ever read "Little Black Sambo" in Japanese? What do you think about the articles I have given you, which show the debate concerning the banning of this picture book? (3) What do you think about the existence of "The Club for the Abolition of Black Discrimination" in Japan? (4) Looking at three illustrations in the articles, which show three different types of Little Black Sambo, what do you feel? (5) All articles are concerned with the discrimination against the African-Americans. What do you think about the discrimination in general? Collecting more than 230 students' answers, I have synopsised the following responses in numerical order. (1) Most of the students didn't believe there was a attitude in discriminating African-American character goods. They only t

hought they were pretty and cute. They didn't know why the goods displayed a discriminating image. But if the African-Americans feel they do, it is necessary for us, Japanese, to re-think and change our ways. (2) Almost all of them have read "Little Black Sambo" (in Japanese) and they very much liked its story. It seemed that the picture book most of them had read was published by IWANAMI SHOTEN. They regret that it is now out-of-print. They didn't think that discrimination against African-Americans would be abolished by the discrimination of "Sambo". While abolishing it, they thought, it was therefore necessary for us, the Japanese, to know the real African-Americans' history and understand their present conditions and their ways of thinking. (3) Some of the students thought the club's trial was a good stance for Japan to take. But mostof them didn't know why the club began this movement. Some of them thought there also were other discrimination problems in Japan. We must think about them first and try to abolish all the discrimination and not only just the African-American one. (4) They felt the illustrations by IWANAMI was the most preferable among the three. Most of them remembered their childhood with sentimental nostalgia. Sambo must have been an East Indian boy. But the illustrations by IWANAMI were painted depicting him as an African-American boy. It was one of the most important factors when thinking about this problem. The setting of this story was East India, though its illustrations of boy and his parents were changed and drawn as African-Americans. (5) The students, especially who major in Asian or Japanese history, emphasized that it was important to re-assess the problem of discrimination against African-Americans, but it was more important to think about the discrimination that exists inside Japan, for example, "buraku", Korean, Chinese, Philippines, and women. After completing this questionnare, the students said to me that they would continue to think about the general topic of discrimination

. Through this research, those who will take over the continuance of Japanese traditions will begin to think seriously about what is a true understanding of different cultures and real internationalization.